Israel maintains two separate road networks in the West Bank: one for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers, and one for Palestinian natives. Is that not apartheid?
Palestinians are not allowed to drive their own cars in much of the West Bank; their public transportation is frequently interrupted or blocked altogether by a grid of Israeli army checkpoints -- but Jewish settlers come and go freely in their own cars, without even pausing at the roadblocks that hold up the natives. Is that not apartheid?
A system of closures and curfews has strangled the Palestinian economy in the West Bank -- but none of its provisions apply to the Jewish settlements there. Is that not apartheid?
Whole sectors of the West Bank, classified as "closed military areas" by the Israeli army, are off limits to Palestinians, including Palestinians who own land there -- but foreigners to whom Israel's Law of Return applies (that is, anyone Jewish, from anywhere in the world) can access them without hindrance. Is that not apartheid?
Persons of Palestinian origin are routinely barred from entering or residing in the West Bank -- but Israeli and non-Israeli Jews can come and go, and even live on, occupied Palestinian territory. Is that not apartheid?
Israel maintains two sets of rules and regulations in the West Bank: one for Jews, one for non-Jews. The only thing wrong with using the word "apartheid" to describe such a repugnant system is that the South African version of institutionalized discrimination was never as elaborate as its Israeli counterpart -- nor did it have such a vocal chorus of defenders among otherwise liberal Americans.
The glaring error in Carter's book, however, is his insistence that the term "apartheid" does not apply to Israel itself, where, he says, Jewish and non-Jewish citizens are given the same treatment under the law. That is simply not true.
Israeli law affords differences in privileges for Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of the state -- in matters of access to land, family unification and acquisition of citizenship. Israel's amended nationality law, for example, prevents Palestinian citizens of Israel who are married to Palestinians from the occupied territories from living together in Israel. A similar law, passed at the peak of apartheid in South Africa, was overturned by that country's supreme court as a violation of the right to a family. Israel's high court upheld its law just this year.
Israel loudly proclaims itself to be the state of the Jewish people, rather than the state of its actual citizens (one-fifth of whom are Palestinian Arabs). In fact, in registering citizens, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior assigns them a whole range of nationalities other than "Israeli." In the official registry, the nationality line for a Jewish citizen of Israel reads "Jew." For a Palestinian citizen, the same line reads "Arab." When this glaring inequity was protested all the way to Israel's high court, the justices upheld it: "There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people." Obviously this leaves non-Jewish citizens of Israel in, at best, a somewhat ambiguous situation. Little wonder, then, that a solid majority of Israeli Jews regard their Arab fellow-citizens as what they call "a demographic threat," which many -- including the deputy prime minister -- would like to see eliminated altogether. What is all this, if not racism?
Many of the very individuals and institutions that are so vociferously denouncing President Jimmy Carter would not for one moment tolerate such glaring injustice in the United States. Why do they condone the naked racism that Israel practices? Why do they heap criticism on our former president for speaking his conscience about such a truly unconscionable system of ethnic segregation?
Perhaps it is because they themselves are all too aware that they are defending the indefensible; because they are all too aware that the emperor they keep trying to cover up really has no clothes. There is a limit to how long such a cover up can go on. And the main lesson of Carter's book is that we have finally reached that limit.
Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA and a frequent commentator on Middle East issues.
Urgent Request For Funds To Buy Trial Transcripts in defense of a blessed man wrongfully convicted by the Bush Justice Department for his crime of compassion:
In direct response to the humanitarian catastrophe created by the brutal and unjustifiable U.S. and U.K. sponsored UN embargo on Iraq, Dr. Rafil Dhafir started the charity Help the Needy (HTN). For 13 years he worked tirelessly to help publicize the plight of the Iraqi people and to raise funds to help them.
A passport photo found in a Hamburg city office is proving to be a central piece of evidence in the investigation into the murder of the ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. It shows that Dmitry Kovtun, a suspect who met with Litvinenko on the day police believe he was poisoned, came into contact with Polonium 210 at least two days earlier. By Uwe Klussmann and Andreas Ulrich more...
WASHINGTON: The U.S. Navy's latest proposal to test a blood substitute on 1,100 trauma victims appears more likely to earn a go-ahead from regulators who had blocked the experiment over safety concerns.
The Navy wants to test the product, derived from cow blood, on civilian trauma victims in emergency situations. It proposes doing so without obtaining their consent in advance, as is customary in clinical trials.
The substitute blood, called Hemopure, would be given on the way to the hospital to patients ages 18 to 69 who have lost dangerous amounts of blood. It would substitute the saline fluids typically given in ambulances when donated blood is unavailable for transfusion.
Three times since June 2005, the Food and Drug Administration has blocked Hemopure trials from starting. Each time, it has cited safety concerns. Its manufacturer, Biopure Corp., based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, contends that the benefits of Hemopure outweigh its risks.
The Navy, which is overseeing the government-funded study, has since revised its design. It now says the product will not be given to patients 70 or older, and it is limiting the amount of Hemopure that would be given to trauma victims.
Those changes may persuade the FDA to allow the experiment to proceed.
"The restriction on age and on the volume of the test article suggests that the clinical requirements for exception from informed consent are much closer to being met than in the original protocol," an anonymous FDA reviewer wrote in agency documents. There "appears to be sufficient information provided to consider approval under waiver of consent," the reviewer added.
The FDA released the documents ahead of a public meeting of agency advisers convened to discuss the proposed experiment. The meeting Thursday originally was to have been held in secret in July but was postponed at the last minute.
Researchers say blood substitutes can both counter a dangerous drop in blood pressure in bleeding victims and carry oxygen from the lungs to the body. Saline fluids can do the former but not the latter. While blood can do both, it has its own limitations. Unlike blood, blood substitutes theoretically could be stored for years and then used without concern for infection or blood type.
December 13, 2006 09:01pm Article from: Agence France-Presse
From correspondents in Beijing
December 13, 2006 09:01pm Article from: Agence France-Presse
A TEAM of foreign and Chinese scientists have failed to find an endangered dolphin during a six-week trip on China's mighty Yangtze river, making it all but certain the rare animal is extinct.
"We have to accept the fact, that the baiji is extinct. We lost the race," said August Pfluger, co-head of the expedition and chief of Swiss-based baiji.org, an environmental group dedicated to saving the dolphins.
"It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world," admitted Mr Pfluger in a statement at the end of the six-week expedition.
Scientists estimate the baiji dolphin has lived on earth for up to 25 million years.
Mr Pfluger admitted that it was possible that one or two animals had been missed despite the use of high-tech optical and acoustic equipment, as well as a group of trained observers.
The baiji, believed to be among the world's oldest fresh-water mammals, made its home along the lower reaches of the China's environmentally degraded Yangtze River.
The cousin of the bottlenose dolphin had been critically endangered for years, a victim of devastating pollution, illegal fishing and expressway-like cargo traffic on the river.
Although the baiji had not been officially sighted in more than two years, scientists from China, Japan, Switzerland and the US had hoped that the 1750km search from Yichang to Shanghai would turn up the white dolphin.
The two expedition ships carried out the same procedures travelling and returning to Yichang, near China's massive Three Gorges dam.
Marine biologist Wang Ding, who has dedicated his life to the study of the baiji and another Yangtze dweller related to the dolphin, the finless porpoise, refused to give up hope.
"Although the expedition did not find any baiji, we still cannot merely rely on the expedition to conclude that the baiji is extinct," said the vice director of the hydrobiology institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Scientific data indicates that more than 90 per cent of baiji deaths were caused by human encroachment.
US interrogators have devised a new form of torture. It debases the democracy they claim to be defending.
After thousands of years of practice, you might have imagined that every possible means of inflicting pain had already been devised. But you should never underestimate the human capacity for invention. United States interrogators, we now discover, have found a new way of destroying a human being.
Last week, defence lawyers acting for Jose Padilla, a US citizen detained as an "enemy combatant", released a video showing a mission fraught with deadly risk - taking him to the prison dentist. A group of masked guards in riot gear shackled his legs and hands, blindfolded him with black-out goggles and shut off his hearing with headphones, then marched him down the prison corridor.
Men grieve over the three boys' bodies. The sons of a senior Fatah official were murdered when their car was riddled with 60 bullets
Two days ago in the Gaza strip, unknown gunmen deliberately targeted and murdered 3 Palestinian children as they were being driven to school. The Guardian reports:
Patients in Romanian mental institutions are treated little better than animals. Neither the country's transition to democracy nor its preparations for entry into the European Union can make the government in Bucharest take action.
Doru discovered the dead man right after breakfast, lying in a meadow behind the lounge. A glass of water stood next to the charred corpse. The man had set himself on fire. Now he'll be examined by the doctors and then maybe he'll go to heaven, his friends say. He's put the worst behind him, they add.
The other patients don't have that option. They have to put up with the stinking gray underworld of the mental asylum in the Romanian town of Borsa. None of them know if they will ever get out again -- most of the patients in Borsa stay there until they die.
Mentally ill people are often seen as unwanted outsiders in Romania. No one wants to have to deal with them, and they're referred to colloquially as "varsa" ("weeds"). In this country, not even doctors believe a disturbed soul can become healthy again -- once crazy, always crazy.
Cursed
Borsa Castle is located in the most idyllic part of Transylvania, 260 kilometers (162 miles) west of Bucharest. It was the summer residence of the Bánffy family until shortly after the end of World War II. When the communists threw the family out, Baroness Bánffy put a curse on the expropriated house, wishing for it to become an asylum. The reality was worse than her curse. Borsa Castle became one of the most monstrous mental institutions in Romania.
The annual death rate here is around 10 percent. Those patients who don't have relatives to bribe the attendants with food parcels and gifts can't afford to become seriously ill. If they do, they may end up rotting in their own feces.
Outside visitors aren't welcome in the castle -- unless they're accompanied by Paul-Otto Schmid-Michel, a professor of psychiatry from Ravensburg in western Germany who has become something of a godparent to the asylum.
German officials have so far spent the week tracking down numerous traces of radioactive polonium 210, left behind by Litvinenko's associate Dmitry Kovtun. Now, Kovtun has told SPIEGEL TV that he's sorry. more...
Jeff Halper The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions 23 Nov 06
Let's be honest (for once): The problem in the Middle East is not the Palestinian people, not Hamas, not the Arabs, not Hezbollah or the Iranians or the entire Muslim world. It's us, the Israelis. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the single greatest cause of instability, extremism and violence in our region, is perhaps the simplest conflict in the world to resolve. For almost 20 years, since the PLO's recognition of Israel within the 1949 Armistice Lines (the "Green Line" separating Israel from the West Bank and Gaza), every Palestinian leader, backed by large majorities of the Palestinian population, has presented Israel with a most generous offer: A Jewish state on 78% of Israel/Palestine in return for a Palestinian state on just 22% - the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. In fact, this is a proposition supported by a large majority of both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. As reported in Ha'aretz (January 18, 2005):
The Iraq Study Group didn't just advise Bush to change strategy in Iraq. It also urged the president to stop lying to the American people.
No one could ever suggest that James Baker lacks ambition or self-confidence. So it is not surprising that along with its effort to salvage Iraq, the report from Baker's Iraq Study Group offers some strong advice on how to fix George W. Bush's dysfunctional Washington - and the president's dysfunctional relations with the rest of the world.
We were particularly drawn to Recommendations 46, 72 and 78. Under separate headings dealing with the military, the federal budget and the nation's intelligence agencies, they share one basic idea: Government officials should not lie to the public or each other, especially in matters of war.
One should not need a blue ribbon commission to know that. But the fact that it had to be said, and so often, in the report goes a long way toward explaining how Bush got the country into the Iraq mess and why it is proving so hard to dig out of it.
Consider Recommendation 46, which calls on the new secretary of defense to create "an environment in which the senior military feel free to offer independent advice" to civilian leaders, including the president. That is their sworn duty. But the back story is the Pentagon's prewar refusal to listen to the former Army chief of staff (and who knows how many other generals) who warned that it would take several hundred thousand troops to stabilize a post-invasion Iraq. The good news is that the new secretary of defense, Robert Gates, acknowledged as much in his confirmation hearings. The bad news is that Bush has not.
Recommendation 72 says that "costs for the war in Iraq should be included in the president's annual budget request." The report warns that the White House's habit of using emergency funding for the war has eroded both "budget discipline" and congressional oversight. And just in case you were worrying that you hadn't been paying sufficient attention to the war's price tag, the report says the White House presents its requests in such a "confusing manner" that only detailed analyses by budget experts can answer "what should be a simple question: How much money is the president requesting for the war in Iraq?"
And finally, Recommendation 78 calls on the Pentagon and the intelligence community to "institute immediate changes" in how they collect data on violence in Iraq "to provide a more accurate picture of events on the ground." The report says that officials have used a standard for recording attacks (it notes that "a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted") that systematically underreports Iraq's mayhem. It cites one day this past July when the government recorded 93 "attacks or significant acts of violence," while the Iraq Study Group's own analysis "brought to light 1,100 acts of violence."
Sprinkled among the recommendations, the report also has some homespun advice on how Bush might fix America's foreign relations. It suggests that the nature of diplomacy is to engage with adversaries as well as friends. And it warns that the United States does Israel "no favors" by refusing to try to broker peace in the Middle East, adding that it is "an axiom that when the political process breaks down there will be violence on the ground."
It is mind-boggling that this commission felt compelled to deliver Governing 101 lessons to the president of the United States. But that fits with the implicit message of the entire exercise - a rebuke of the ideologically blinkered way Bush operates. The report shows that there have always been plenty of alternatives to Bush's stubborn insistence on staying the course, and that if he were just willing to make an effort, it would be possible to forge a bipartisan consensus on the toughest issues.
It's tragic that Bush could not figure that out for himself. It is far past time for him to heed this new advice.
I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster two years ago to write a book about the Middle East, based on my personal observations as the Carter Center monitored three elections in Palestine and on my consultations with Israeli political leaders and peace activists.
We covered every Palestinian community in 1996, 2005 and 2006, when Yasser Arafat and later Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and members of parliament were chosen. The elections were almost flawless, and turnout was very high - except in East Jerusalem, where, under severe Israeli restraints, only about 2% of registered voters managed to cast ballots.
The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations - but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.
It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians. Very few would ever deign to visit the Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or even Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents. What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed quite forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land.
With some degree of reluctance and some uncertainty about the reception my book would receive, I used maps, text and documents to describe the situation accurately and to analyze the only possible path to peace: Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within their own internationally recognized boundaries. These options are consistent with key U.N. resolutions supported by the U.S. and Israel, official American policy since 1967, agreements consummated by Israeli leaders and their governments in 1978 and 1993 (for which they earned Nobel Peace Prizes), the Arab League's offer to recognize Israel in 2002 and the International Quartet's "Roadmap for Peace," which has been accepted by the PLO and largely rejected by Israel.
The book is devoted to circumstances and events in Palestine and not in Israel, where democracy prevails and citizens live together and are legally guaranteed equal status.
Although I have spent only a week or so on a book tour so far, it is already possible to judge public and media reaction. Sales are brisk, and I have had interesting interviews on TV, including "Larry King Live," "Hardball," "Meet the Press," "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," the "Charlie Rose" show, C-SPAN and others. But I have seen few news stories in major newspapers about what I have written.
Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-Semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions." A former Carter Center fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent."
Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark - that I should be tried for treason - and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors. I have been most encouraged by prominent Jewish citizens and members of Congress who have thanked me privately for presenting the facts and some new ideas.
The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine's citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank. An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid. I have made it clear that the motivation is not racism but the desire of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and colonize choice sites in Palestine, and then to forcefully suppress any objections from the displaced citizens. Obviously, I condemn any acts of terrorism or violence against innocent civilians, and I present information about the terrible casualties on both sides.
The ultimate purpose of my book is to present facts about the Middle East that are largely unknown in America, to precipitate discussion and to help restart peace talks (now absent for six years) that can lead to permanent peace for Israel and its neighbors. Another hope is that Jews and other Americans who share this same goal might be motivated to express their views, even publicly, and perhaps in concert. I would be glad to help with that effort.
By Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," published last month. He is scheduled to sign books Monday at Vroman's in Pasadena.
-- -- IN America we like quick fixes, closure and an uplifting show. Such were the high hopes for the Iraq Study Group, and on one of the three it delivered. The report of the 10 Washington elders was rolled out like a heartwarming Hollywood holiday release. There was a feel-good title, “The Way Forward,” unfortunately chosen as well by Ford Motor to promote its last-ditch plan to stave off bankruptcy. There was a months-long buildup, with titillating sneak previews to whip up anticipation. There was the gala publicity tour on opening day, starting with a President Bush cameo timed for morning television and building to a “Sunshine Boys” curtain call by James Baker and Lee Hamilton on “Larry King Live.”
The Mexican fast-food chain Taco Bell is at the centre of America's latest food scare, after nearly 100 people were reported to have fallen sick with an acute bacterial infection after eating contaminated green onions at Taco Bell restaurants.
The chain immediately dropped the onions at all 5,800 of its North American outlets, and closed dozens of branches along the eastern seaboard. Government investigators working on similar cases are trying to find out how vegetables apparently infected by animal faeces entered the food chain.
Another outbreak involves the E.coli O157:H7 bacteria, a singularly nasty E.coli strain that originates in the stomachs of grain- and corn-fed cattle. In September, three people died and 200 others fell ill after eating bagged spinach from a Californian grower. There have been problems, too, with salmonella, including one outbreak in tomatoes which affected dozens of people across 21 states.
Michael Pollan, a journalism professor who has written extensively about food safety, said all the recent problems stemmed from the intensive, industrial-style agriculture increasingly practised in the United States.
The 0157:H7 strain of E.coli was unknown until cattle were taken from their traditional grazing grounds, pushed into industrial feedlots and fed grain and corn instead.
Faeces from those animals, in turn, can sometimes enter the water supply on big farms and find its way into irrigation canals in vegetable fields.
Professor Pollan recently likened many US farms to giant "petri dishes" in which all sorts of bacterial cultures could grow and thrive. Fast-food chains have taken steps to safeguard their ground beef - which can easily get mixed with faeces - but vegetables represent a new front in the fight for public health.
Federal investigators responding to the Taco Bell outbreak also checked the safety of other ingredients. Now the lawsuits are flying. On Long Island, outside New York, the family of an 11-year-old boy who fell ill filed a negligence suit against the chain. The boy ate three tacos last month and had to be treated in hospital. He recovered.
I'm sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. I stood through a memorial service today for a young Marine that was killed in Iraq back in April. During this memorial a number of people spoke about the guy and about his sacrifice for the country. How do you justify 'sacrificing' your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man's power, and his ego.
A recent Marine Corps intelligence report that was leaked said that the war in the al-Anbar province is unwinnable. It said that there was nothing we could do to win the hearts and minds, or the military operations in that area. So I wonder, why are we still there? Democracy is not forced upon people at gunpoint. It's the result of forward thinking individuals who take the initiative and risks to give their fellow countrymen a better way of life.
Outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus has killed up to 5,500 gorillas in West Africa. A study released on Friday says that together with commercial hunting, the virus could threaten the species with extinction. more...
US and Israel targeting DNA in Gaza? Part 1: The DIME bomb, yet another genotoxic weapon
James Brooks Online Journal Dec 5, 2006
It's been almost five months since the first report that Israeli drone aircraft have been dropping a "mystery weapon" on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Since then, news media around the world have run stories depicting the strange and "horrific" wounds inflicted by the new bomb. The international press has spoken with Palestinian doctors and medics who say Israel's new device is a kind of chemical weapon that has significantly increased the fatality rate among the victims of Israeli attacks. [1] [2]
In mid-October, Italian investigators reported forensic evidence that suggests the new weapon may also represent the near future of US "counterinsurgency warfare." Combined with photographs of the victims and testimony from attending doctors, this evidence points to the use of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). [3]
DIME is an LCD ("low collateral damage") weapon developed at the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Publicly, it is slated for initial deployment in 2008. DIME bombs produce an unusually powerful blast within a relatively small area, spraying a superheated "micro-shrapnel" ; of powdered Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy (HMTA). Scientific studies have found that HMTA is chemically toxic, damages the immune system, rapidly causes cancer, and attacks DNA (genotoxic). [4-11]
It is unfortunate that the US media have virtually blacked out the story of Israel's new weapon, not least because our own military may soon be using it in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story might also have told us something about the grossly disproportionate brutality of Israel's war on the Palestinian people -- reason enough for the media to suppress it. [12]
Thanks to the intrepid Italians, the story could even have introduced Americans to their government's DIME weapons program. This three-part article will ask whether Israel is 'testing' US DIME bombs in the Gaza Strip, and explore the workings, dangers, and projected use of DIME weapons and their roots in depleted uranium (DU) research. These parallels will lead us to consider DIME in its historical context, as the latest innovation in the US military's long-running development of genotoxic weapons.
"They cannot return to life again"
The first reports about 'Israel's new weapon' came from Dr Joma Al-Saqqa, chief of the emergency unit at Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa. Dr. Al-Saqqa said that Israel was using "a new 'chemical' weapon" and its siege was "a live exercise on a new ammunition that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200." He observed that, "despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body." [13]
"There were usually entry and exit wounds," Dr. Al-Saqqa reported. "When the wounds were explored no foreign material was found. There was tissue death, the extent of which was difficult to determine. . . . A higher deep infection rate resulted with subsequent amputation. In spite of amputation there was a higher mortality." The effects of the weapon seemed "radioactive." [14] [15]
According to Palestine News Network, Dr. Al-Saqqa "confirmed that there were dozens of wounded legs and arms. Many of them had been burned from the inside, and distorted to the point that they cannot return to life again." [16]
"When the shrapnel hit[s] the body, it causes very strong burns that destroy the tissues around the bones . . . it burns and destroys internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, and the spleen and other organs and makes saving the wounded almost impossible. As a surgeon, I have seen thousands of wounds during the Intifada, but nothing was like this weapon." [17]
However, Dr. Al-Saqqa could not analyze the chemistry of the bizarre wounds. On the first day of the siege, June 27, Israel had conveniently destroyed Gaza's only crime laboratory. [18]
Despite his pleas to the "international community" to investigate and lend assistance in treating the victims, "no one has lifted a finger," the doctor was quoted in mid-July. "What we found were journalists who came to take pictures, but as for the medical community, nothing." [19]
On August 3, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd had visited Dr. Al-Saqqa's hospital, "where the staff is struggling to deal with wounds resulting in an unusually high number of amputations." Commissioner AbuZayd commented that "what we saw in Al-Shifa . . . was rather horrific." [20]
According to Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International), "75 per cent of war-wounded patients admitted at one hospital needed amputations" following an Israeli attack on Gaza City. [21]
The World Health Organization was reportedly considering an investigation into the injuries. Physicians for Human Rights - Israel "agreed to take away fragments of tissue from the bodies of Palestinians killed during the recent military operations in Gaza for possible analysis in Israel but urged the medics to seek an international investigation." [22]
Tungsten in tissue samples: A DIME weapon?
On October 19, Italy's Rai24news televised an investigative report that supplied crucial new information. The Italian investigators had tissue samples from the victims in Gaza analyzed by Dr. Carmela Vaccaio at University Parma. Dr. Vaccaio reportedly found "a very high concentration of carbon and the presence of unusual materials, such as copper, aluminum and tungsten." The doctor concluded that her "findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME."
Rai24news reporters also talked to Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Israel, former chief of the Israeli Defense Force's (IDF's) weapons development program. General Ben-Israel appeared to be familiar with DIME weapons. He explained that "one of the ideas is to allow those targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other persons." [23]
The US Air Force refers to this emerging realm of weaponry as FLM (Focused Lethality Munitions). FLM is expected to provide the 'weapons of choice' for targeting "terrorists hiding among civilians," as a cheerleading Wall Street Journal article put it. [24]
With "focused lethality [and] higher energy materials . . . nano particles, intelligent fuzing, [and] mass focus lethality," the Air Force "will be able to strike effectively, wherever and whenever necessary, with minimal collateral damage." Ominously, the military thinks these weapons will allow it to target sites "previously off limits to the warfighter." [25] [26]
This warfare of the future is reminiscent of what Israel has been doing for years, but with one-ton bombs, 155-mm artillery shells, and tank-fired antipersonnel flechette bombs. Are FLM weapons like DIME an improvement? Or will they actually increase civilian casualties and suffering, and mimic depleted uranium weapons by inducing disease and genetic damage in their victims? These disturbing questions will be explored in the next installment of this article.
"Intercourse is painful for circumcised women. To be able to penetrate, men must often force themselves into their wives' vaginas. Those whose penises are incapable of doing the job use a knife to enlarge the opening."
December 06, 2006
A SMALL REVOLUTION IN CAIRO
Theologians Battle Female Circumcision
By Amira El Ahl in Cairo
In Cairo, a small revolution has been launched: A conference of high-ranking Muslim theologians has agreed that the practice of female genital mutilation is irreconcilable with Islam. The painful and often deadly practice of female circumcision affects millions of women in Africa.
Fatima's scream is as blood-curdling as it is heart-wrenching. The little girl, who looks to be about eight years old, screams in a panic, initially in fear and then because she is unable to bear the pain she is experiencing. She is lying on the floor of a dirty hut somewhere in the Ethiopian desert. Her body is contorted with pain as she screams, cries and finally lies there whimpering. Her new, green floral dress is soaked in blood.
The media are getting all gushy about Herbert Walker Bush breaking down crying during an event honoring his younger son, Jeb.
I'm sorry. I don't feel gushy. I see a doddering disease vector who has personally produced the most despised, hated reviled, so-called human in the history of the planet.
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, plans to reduce its use of the U.S. dollar in world trade and increase use of the euro, two Tehran-based newspapers reported.
The Tehran Times said today Iran has started substituting euros for dollars in oil sales, citing an unidentified person at the Oil Ministry. Iran Daily reported Iran wants to cut its dollar-based transactions to a minimum, citing Minister of Economy Davoud Danesh-Ja'fari.
Iran's policy of selling oil in U.S. dollars ``has not changed yet,'' said Hojatollah Ghanimifard, executive director for international affairs at National Iranian Oil Co., in a statement read to Bloomberg News from his office.
The U.S. and several European nations are pushing the United Nations to sanction Iran for its nuclear program. The dollar touched a 20-month low against the euro this week, and central banks in the Middle East including the United Arab Emirates have plans to convert some of their dollar reserves into euros.
Exporting nations ``are only holding so many dollars because of all the trade in the currency, but if the trend begins to move out of it, then it's going to be a positive for the euro and add to the negative sentiment on the dollar,'' said David Mann, a foreign-exchange strategist at Standard Chartered Bank Plc in Hong Kong.
The dollar was at $1.3278 against the euro at 8:07 a.m. in New York, compared with $1.3317 late yesterday.
Iran's oil export contracts for months have included a clause that allows the nation to seek payment in the euro and other currencies, creating a mechanism for a switch should Iran's policy change, according to traders who buy Iranian oil.
Lender Blocked
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries members including Qatar earlier this week expressed concern about the falling dollar, saying output should be cut to drive prices higher.
Iran has repeatedly said it would limit dollar-based transactions following the U.S. decision in September to block one of Iran's biggest state-owned lenders from doing business with the U.S. The U.S. Treasury on Sept. 8 blocked Bank Saderat for its alleged support of ``terrorist organizations'' such as Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
Iran exports 60 percent of its crude to Asia, 32 percent to Europe and 8 percent to Africa. It is the world's fourth-largest exporter of crude and OPEC's second-biggest member. The nation last month produced 3.76 million barrels a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
To contact the reporter on this story: Marc Wolfensberger in Tehran at mwolfens@bloomberg.net Last Updated: December 6, 2006 11:03
Tens of millions of Americans want President George W. Bush to be impeached for the lies and deceit he used to launch an illegal war and for violating his oath of office to uphold the US Constitution.
Millions of other Americans want Bush turned over to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. The true fate that awaits Bush is psychiatric incarceration.
The president of the United States is so deep into denial that he is no longer among the sane.
Delusion still rules Bush three weeks after the American people repudiated him and his catastrophic war in elections that delivered both House and Senate to the Democrats in the hope that control over Congress would give the opposition party the strength to oppose the mad occupant of the White House.
On November 28 Bush insisted that US troops would not be withdrawn from Iraq until he had completed his mission of building a stable Iraqi democracy capable of spreading democratic change in the Middle East.
Bush made this astonishing statement the day after NBC News, a major television network, declared Iraq to be in the midst of a civil war, a judgment with which former Secretary of State Colin Powell concurs.
The same day that Bush reaffirmed his commitment to building a stable Iraqi democracy, a secret US Marine Corps intelligence report was leaked. According to the Washington Post, the report concludes: "the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point that US and Iraqi troops are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar province."
The Marine Corps intelligence report says that Al Qaeda is the "dominant organization of influence" in Anbar province, and is more important than local authorities, the Iraqi government and US troops "in its ability to control the day-to-day life of the average Sunni."
Bush's astonishing determination to deny Iraq reality was made the same day that the US-installed Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki and US puppet King Abdullah II of Jordan abruptly cancelled a meeting with Bush after Bush was already in route to Jordon on Air Force One.
Bush could not meet with Maliki in Iraq, because violence in Baghdad is out of control. For security reasons, the US Secret Service would not allow President Bush to go to Iraq, where he is "building a stable democracy."
Bush made his astonishing statement in the face of news leaks of the Iraq Study Group's call for a withdrawal of all US combat forces from Iraq. The Iraq Study Group is led by Bush family operative James A. Baker, a former White House chief of staff, former Secretary of the Treasury, and former Secretary of State. Baker was tasked by father Bush to save the son. Apparently, son Bush hasn't enough sanity to allow himself to be saved.
Bush's denial of Iraqi reality was made even as one of the most influential Iraqi Shiite leaders, Moqtada al-Sadr, is building an anti-US parliamentary alliance to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
Maliki himself appears on the verge of desertion by his American sponsors. The White House has reportedly "lost confidence" in Maliki's "ability to control violence." Fox "News" disinformation agency immediately began blaming Maliki for the defeat the US has suffered in Iraq. NY governor Pataki told Fox "News" that "Maliki is not doing his job." Pataki claimed that US troops were doing "a great job."
A number of other politicians and talking heads joined in the scapegoating of Maliki. No one explained how Maliki can be expected to save Iraq when US troops cannot provide enough security for the Iraqi government to go outside the heavily fortified "green zone" that occupies a small area of Baghdad. If the US Marines cannot control Anbar province, what chance is there for Maliki? What can Maliki do if the security provided by US troops is so bad that the President of the US cannot even visit the country?
The only people in Iraq who are safe belong to Al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents or are Shiite militia leaders such as al-Sadr.
An American group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, has filed war crimes charges in Germany against former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A number of former US attorneys believe President Bush and Vice President Cheney deserve the same.
Bush has destroyed the entire social, political, and economic fabric of Iraq. Saddam Hussein sat on the lid of Pandora's Box of sectarian antagonisms, but Bush has opened the lid. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed as "collateral damage" in Bush's war to bring "stable democracy" to Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraqi children have been orphaned and maimed. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have fled their country. The Middle East is aflame with hatred of America, and the ground is shaking under the feet of American puppet governments in the Middle East. US casualties (killed and wounded) number 25,000.
And Bush has not had enough!
What better proof of Bush's insanity could there be?
From correspondents in Beijing
Doru discovered the dead man right after breakfast, lying in a meadow behind the lounge. A glass of water stood next to the charred corpse. The man had set himself on fire. Now he'll be examined by the doctors and then maybe he'll go to heaven, his friends say. He's put the worst behind him, they add. 
